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The Selk'nam (Seriot)
The Selk'nam led by Seriot is a custom civilization by Grant, with contributions from Kerfuffle and Hoop Thrower. This mod requires Brave New World. Overview 'The Selk'nam' The Selk'nam, also known as the Onawo or Ona people, are an indigenous people in the Patagonian region of southern Argentina and Chile, including the Tierra del Fuego islands. They were one of the last native groups in South America to be encountered by migrant ethnic Europeans or Westerners in the late 19th century. While the Selk'nam are closely associated with living in the northeastern area of Tierra del Fuego, they are believed to have originated as a people on the mainland. Thousands of years ago, they migrated by canoe across the Strait of Magellan. Their territory around the Mesolithic ranged as far as the Cerro Toro mountain range in Chile, in the territory of the modern-day Kaweskar. Traditionally, the Selk'nam were nomadic people who relied on hunting for survival, dressing sparingly despite the cold climate of Patagonia. They shared Tierra del Fuego with the Haush, another nomadic culture who lived in the south-eastern part of the island, as well as the maritime Yámana. The religious culture of the Selk'nam was a complex system of beliefs. It described spirit beings as a part of the past, in creation myth; Temáukel was the name of the great supernatural entity who they believed kept the world order. The creator deity of the world, the child of Temaukel, was called Kénos. Many of their tales recounted shaman-like characters. Such a shaman has supernatural capabilities; he can control the weather, predict the future and lure whales to the coast. The Selknam believed in haruwens; divisions of the earth and sky into quadrants, each with its own mystical and cultural significance. Selk'nam were encouraged to marry and move between these haruwens. Selk'nam male initiation ceremonies, the passage to adulthood, was called Hain. Nearby indigenous peoples, the Yahgan and Haush, had similar initiation ceremonies. Young males were called to a dark hut. There they would be attacked by "spirits", who were people dressed as supernatural beings. The children were taught to believe in and fear these spirits at childhood and were threatened by them in case they misbehaved. Their task in this rite of passage was to unmask the spirits; when the boys saw that the spirits were human, they were told a story of world creation related to the sun and moon. In a related story they were told that in the past women used to be disguised as spirits to control men. When the men discovered the masquerade, they in turn would threaten women as spirits. According to the men, the women never learned that the masked males were not truly spirits, but the males found out at the initiation rite. Apart from these dramatic re-enactments of mythic events, the Hain involved tests for young males for courage, resourcefulness, resisting temptation, resisting pain and overcoming fear. It also included prolonged instructional courses to train the young men in the tasks for which they would be responsible. Before European encounter, the various rites of the Hain lasted a very long time, perhaps even a year on occasion. It would end with the last fight against the "worst" spirit. Usually Hains were started when there was enough food (for example a whale was washed onto the coast), a time when all the Selk'nam from all the bands used to gather at one place, in male and female camps. "Spirits" sometimes went to female encampments to scare them, as well as moving around and acting out in ways that related to their characters. The Selk'nam had little contact with ethnic Europeans until settlers arrived in the late 19th century. These newcomers developed a great part of the land of Tierra del Fuego as large estancias (sheep ranches), depriving the natives of their ancestral hunting areas. Selk'nam, who considered the sheep herds to be game rather than private property (which they did not have as a concept) hunted the sheep. The ranch owners considered this to be poaching, and paid armed groups or militia to hunt down and kill the Selk'nam, in what is now called the Selk'nam Genocide. To receive their bounty, such groups had to bring back the ears of victims. Two Christian missions were established to save the Selk'nam. They were intended to provide housing and food for the natives, but closed due to the small number of Selk'nam remaining; they had numbered in the thousands before Western colonization, but by the early twentieth century only a few hundred remained. The last ethnic Selk'nam died in the mid-twentieth century. Alejandro Cañas estimated that in 1896 there was a population of 3,000 Selk'nam. Martín Gusinde, an Austrian priest and ethnologist who studied them in the early 20th century, wrote in 1919 that only 279 Selk'nam remained. In 1945 the Salesian missionary, Lorenzo Massa, counted 25. In May 1974 Ángela Loij, the last full-blood Selk'nam, died. There are probably surviving descendants of partial Selk'nam ancestry. According to the Argentine census of 2001, there were 391 Selk'nam (Ona) living in the island of Tierra del Fuego, and an additional 114 in other parts of Argentina. Seriot Seriot was one of, if not the most, important resistance leader in the struggle to resist the Spanish conquest of the Selk'nam, whose bands of gauchos mowed down defenseless tribes in their path, hunting them for entertainment. The Fuegian meadows, which for millennia supported the successful survival model of the natives, began to be occupied by flocks of sheep that shared grasslands with the guanacos, which were the main nutritional source of the pedestrian nomads. Known as the 'guerilla ona', Seriot, also known as Capelo, became known for his conical hat, but also as a symbol of resistance against his tribe's destruction. His rebellion was the spontaneous reaction to the lack of consideration given by the private or state invaders. He had enjoyed friendly relations with the Spanish as with the neighbouring Haush, but when his young wife was taken first by a rival band of Selk'nam, then captured by the French and taken to the United States, he mustered his small tribe against the colonists, sezing shotguns, clothes and supplies from Spanish farms. From 1890 to 1894 he and his band of onas terrorised Tierra Del Feugo, donning the uniform of a Spanish guerrila and killing policemen, gauchos and naval officers who searched after them, his tribe boarding and shiprecking the British ship Duchess of Alabany off the coast of Cape San Pablo. He was finally captured in late 1894, but not before trying to single-handledly disarm his firing squad. Even after of death, he was a subject of great scientific fascination, his remaines sent to the prestigious university of La Plata. Thereafter, to the last surviors of the Selk'nam, his skeleton was both a sorrowful symbol of powerlessness to the Spanish, and a fierce symbol of boldness in the face of their invasion. In 2010, the indigenous Fuegian community demanded the restitution of the human remains of Seriot, and on April 19, 2016, the bodies of Seriot and three other unidentified Selk'nam were restored to their land. They were housed in the reserve of the Fuegian aboriginal community, where a mausoleum will be built to honor them. 'Dawn of Man' "May your people forever be proud, great Seriot, for your resistance to the invaders and defence of your people knew no bounds. After your wife was stolen by the colonists, you achieved the impossible and fought back against the iron hoof of the Spanish, British and French, commanding your small band of tribes to victory across the lands of fire. For years, not only did you rally your people but you defeated the alien spears and weapons of your enemies; your inate knoweldge of the sacred hills and bays stayed your defeat until all of their forces encircled you. You were captured, but that did not mean you gave up, as you defied your own execution, and betrayed nothing to the colonizers even as you breathed your last. In death, your prescence became even greater than in life, as you were revered not just by your people, but by scientists and scholars across the world. Shaman Seriot, unparralleled guerilla of the Selk'nam, the Spanish forces are once again weak to native resistance, and your people have recovered from brink. More than your bones, they seek you to return from the skies, to bring about a new era of liberation. Can you don your conical hat, grab a musket and strike again at the invaders? Or will your bones crumble away to dust, taking with it the Selk'nam? Can you rise to the challenge once again? Can you build a civilization that will stand the Test of Time? " Introduction: "Welcome, stranger to this ancient land. If you are here to kill me, then do it quickly or I will wrestle the blade out of your hands. If you are not, the gods will find favour with you." Defeat: "You have destroyed what was left of my tribe. I hope you remember that I never blinked once in the face of your tyranny." Unique Attributes Mod Support Full Credits List *''Grant'': Creator, SQL, Art, Lua, Design, Text *''Kerfuffle'': Map *''Hoop Thrower'': Leaderscene References Category:Grant Category:Polar Cultures Category:Civilizations with Male leaders Category:All Civilizations